O ye who believe! take not for friends and protectors those who take your religion for a mockery or sport,- whether among those who received the Scripture before you, or among those who reject Faith; but fear ye Allah, if ye have faith (indeed). 57 for, when you call to prayer, they mock at it and make a jest of it - simply because they are people who do not use their reason. 58 Say: 'People of the Book, do you blame us for any other cause than that we believe in God, and what has been sent down to us, and what was sent down before, and that most of you are ungodly?' 59 Shall I tell thee of a worse (case) than theirs for retribution with Allah? (Worse is the case of him) whom Allah hath cursed, him on whom His wrath hath fallen and of whose sort Allah hath turned some to apes and swine, and who serveth idols. Such are in worse plight and further astray from the plain road. 60 When they come to you they say, "We believe," but they come [with the resolve] to deny the truth and leave in the same state. God knows best what they are concealing. 61 And you see many of them hastening into sin and aggression and the devouring of [what is] unlawful. How wretched is what they have been doing. 62 Why did the men of God and rabbis not forbid them from following their sinful words and their consuming of unlawful gains. Evil was their (rabbis and priests) profession! 63 And the Jews say: the hand of God is fettered. Fettered be their own hands, and cursed be they for that which they have said! Aye! His both hands are wide open. He expendeth howsoever He listeth. And surely that which hath been sent down to thee from thy Lord increaseth many of them in exorbitance and infidelity. And We have cast among them enmity and spite till the Day of Judgement: so oft as they kindle the fire of war Allah extinguisheth it, and they strive after corruption in the land, and Allah approveth not the corrupters. 64 Had the People of the Book only believed and been God-fearing, We should surely have effaced from them their evil deeds, and caused them to enter Gardens of Bliss. 65 And if only they upheld [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to them from their Lord, they would have consumed [provision] from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them are a moderate community, but many of them - evil is that which they do. 66